Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
The Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival opened in 2007, led by a passionate group of film lovers who were driven to showcase the best films from around the world. The festival has grown from a local happening to a prestigious event. Many SDFF’s Jury Award and Audience Award winners have garnered major industry awards and accolades.
The SDFF team was getting set to launch its marketing and communications efforts leading up to the festival’s March 26, 2020, opening night. Perhaps you remember what happened on the 12th of March? Right, the world shut down.
SDFF’s producers, programmers, and staff stood strong and began looking for ways to bring the festival to the people even though they couldn’t come to Sebastopol. Our team launched active campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to let filmmakers, documentary lovers, and anyone else know that SDFF was happening, albeit in a different format.
The documentary film community is an astonishingly dedicated and passionate community. They support and promote each other. They’ll fight for what they believe in. And they want to introduce the world to the causes that matter.
It was an honor to connect and amplify with this community.
the call
“We have a hidden gem of a film festival in Sebastopol, and not enough people know about us.”
the solve
The SDFF team was getting set to launch its marketing and communications efforts leading up to the festival’s March 26, 2020, opening night. Perhaps you remember what happened on the 12th of March? Right, the world shut down.
SDFF’s producers, programmers, and staff stood strong and began looking for ways to bring the festival to the people even though they couldn’t come to Sebastopol. Our team launched active campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to let filmmakers, documentary lovers, and anyone else know that SDFF was happening, albeit in a different format.
The documentary film community is an astonishingly dedicated and passionate community. They support and promote each other. They’ll fight for what they believe in. And they want to introduce the world to the causes that matter.
It was an honor to connect and amplify with this community.
Social Media
Getting in front of documentary film lovers was goal number one. We knew this audience was passionate, global, and curious. We also understood there was an opportunity to connect with them year-round and not just when the festival was happening.
Leading up to the annual festival — we helped with one that was completely virtual, one that was hybrid, and one that was in-person — we shined a spotlight on the films and the filmmakers. We highlighted the causes and offered as many behind-the-scenes stories as possible.
We spent the rest of the year featuring filmmakers who had shown at SDFF, bringing awareness to their causes and updating the audience on news about important events and causes.
Using only organic strategies, we increased the number of followers and engagement on every network.
Digital
In 2021, SDFF tasked our digital team with completely rebuilding the festival’s website. SDFF’s primary goals were to continue communicating with documentary filmmakers and interested followers, drive interest in upcoming events, and sell tickets to that year’s festival.
Our team developed a sensible UX, built the website, and helped guide the content and information flow. We launched just in time to drive ticket sales for the 2022 event and trained SDFF staff on how to update the site as needed.
The website continues to be an indispensable hub of information, especially as the festival plans to take 2024 off to reorganize its team and focus.
Creative
Heading into 2023, the first time SDFF returned to an in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic, the directors asked us to take a larger hand in branding, marketing, and advertising.
We developed a visual framework for SDFF 2023’s announcements, press releases, social media posts, website, advertising, and awards.
ADVERTISING
We launched digital advertising campaigns across Facebook, and Instagram campaigns to let the audience know that SDFF was coming back to live (see what we did there?) and drive them to buy tickets.
A reasonable budget enabled us to connect with audiences around the greater San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin County, and Sonoma County).
That little gem of a film festival no one knew about in 2019 is now an Oscar® qualifying festival, so every award-winning film at SDFF is automatically considered for that year’s Academy Awards. Great job, SDFF!
the client says:
“I was impressed by how knowledgeable they’ve become about our industry. They were interested in learning as much about our industry as they could to help us become successful. And now, they have so much enthusiasm for what we do and our efforts. The team is supportive of our endeavors, which makes a world of difference.”
Jean McGlothlin, SDFFCo-Director
